


An Army Marches On Its Stomach

by IamShadow21



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dessert & Sweets, Domestication, Friendship, Gen, Humour, John Watson Is A BAMF, Jossed, Not NHS Approved, OTP Does Not Have To Mean Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither bachelorhood or the army are conducive to healthy eating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Army Marches On Its Stomach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaalee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaalee/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [An Army Marches On Its Stomach - 兵马未动，粮草先行](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127532) by [IamShadow21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21), [Signorvernet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signorvernet/pseuds/Signorvernet)



> Happy Birthday, kaalee. I honestly don't remember the last time I wrote someone a birthday fic, but the bunny was there, waiting to be written as of yesterday, and it's your birthday.

> **Rufus Hound:** I was told by a soldier that without a well-known German brand of jellied sweet the Army would fall over.
> 
>  **Susan Calman:** What's a well known brand of German sweet?
> 
>  **Rufus Hound:** Haribo!
> 
>  **David Mitchell:** _What?_ The Army marches on _Haribo?_  
>  _The Unbelievable Truth, Series 6 Episode 4, BBC Radio 4_

 

Mid-week, mid-afternoon, between cases, John finds himself patrolling up and down the aisles of his local Tesco's. He has a pocket full of pound coins (bounty from the poker machine at his local) and a list, and his firmest game face on. This will be the week they eat something other than beans and take-out Chinese. This will be the week that they eat at least one vegetable.

He has decided on risotto, because the ingredients themselves are fairly cheap, but the preparation and fuss is enough to make it seem just a little bit posh. He's not a food snob – a steady diet of British Army Rations cures anyone of that – but he's been watching a lot of daytime cooking shows with Mrs Hudson, avoiding Sherlock's sulking, and he's convinced himself that if a knobhead like Jamie Oliver can do it, then so can he.

Then he turns up the wrong aisle, and is confronted by row upon row of plastic and cellophane shrouds within shrouds, brightly coloured gelatine shapes peeking out from the inner sarcophagi.

John's hand gives a little shiver, enough to make him grit his teeth.

He puts the courgettes back, and slinks home with enough for a frugal risotto (more rice than anything) and a guilty, sugary secret in the bottom of a carrier bag.

When he gets to the flat, Sherlock is angrily playing his violin, loudly and obnoxiously enough that John gives dinner up as a bad job. The ingredients go in the cupboard and the vegetable drawer, he goes to Sarah's, and the sweets go into his jacket pocket, one tiny packet at a time. There are enough for one a day, over the week and a half to follow. Time was, he'd have eaten them by the handful and still wolfed down the allotted official servings of sustenance, but he can't afford to any more. For all the running they do, he's no longer a soldier, and London isn't exactly a war zone.

Not yet.

***

 _A week later_

Sherlock wakes up with a painful sounding choking sound.

“Spit,” John suggests calmly, and Sherlock angles his head and does. “Stay down, there's something not far above you, and you've already had a fair cosh on the head.”

“How long?” Sherlock scrapes out.

“About five minutes. You'll need stitches, but your skull's not depressed, it's clotting, and you're conscious. You'll be fine.”

Sherlock swivels his head slightly to squint at him in the half light, then his eyes widen. John has an elbow in his chest, keeping him down, before he can swing himself upright.

Sherlock wriggles and grapples with Johns arm. “Moriarty-”

“-is gone, incapacitated, or in a number of bits.”

“I need-”

John shoves him down harder. “You need to what? Crawl out from a dry, structurally sound alcove into a wet, unstable ruin full of snipers and arcing wiring?”

Sherlock's mouth works like there is a word missing that would clinch the argument in his favour. “We need to catch him.”

“Forget it,”John replies, almost lazily. “He's either gone, or in no state to go anywhere.”

“But-”

Sherlock jumps in surprise when John's hand smacks his cheek sharply. When John speaks again, there is an edge in his voice that hadn't been there before.

“Out _there_ , serial killer, puzzles, murders and mad things, sure, you call the shots. Behind enemy lines, surrounded by marksmen, so concussed your eyes keep crossing, you listen to _me_. We hold our position and wait for rescue. The dogs'll find us.”

Sherlock huffs, but relaxes back and grumbles, “You may have a point.”

“Besides, my leg is broken,” John adds casually. “I'll need a splint or a stretcher.”

“Oh.” Sherlock relents into silence for a few minutes, until a rustling sound prompts him to squint at John again. “Are you eating?”

“Mmm,” John admits, then holds up a free hand to show the rather violent occasional tremor. “Shock setting in. They took my phone, but not these.” The packet rustles again.

Sherlock sneers slightly. “Surely you know that's an old wives' tale.”

John shrugs. “Of course. That's not the point. You got me blown up. I deserve them.” He pauses while he chews and swallows. “Besides, once they dig us out, it's going to be all poking and prodding and scans. They'll have to set my leg properly; hopefully it won't need surgery. We probably have bruised lungs, and we have an unpleasantly high possibility of developing pneumonia from all the crap we're breathing in. I'm treating myself in anticipation of the horrors ahead.”

John grins crookedly when he feels Sherlock shudder. He pushes the next Gummi bear he frees from the tiny packet between Sherlock's lips. Sherlock's eyes narrow, but John keeps his finger there, pressed against Sherlock's mouth, until Sherlock starts to chew.

“Good for what ails you,” John says, though from the tone he might as well have said _good boy_. Sherlock knows it, and pouts a little.

There's a faint wail that might be his ears still ringing but is probably half the emergency personnel of London screaming towards them. If there's one thing London knows how to deal with, it's a bombing.

John chews another Gummi bear slowly, and when he reaches for the very last, Sherlock's mouth opens like a baby bird's.

John considers being selfish, but slips the tiny green bear into Sherlock's mouth instead. He rests his empty hand on Sherlock's hair and settles with a sigh, while outside their little hollow, the street starts to ring with the din of shouts and machines.


End file.
